"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel
nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest
lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

A Democratic congressman from Nevada said in a letter this week that his constituents have reported the armed militia supporting rancher Cliven Bundy have set up checkpoints to verify the residency of anybody passing through.Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), who represents the area, sent the letter Sunday to Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, asking him to investigate."I am writing to bring your attention to the ongoing situation in
northeastern Clark County which has caused many of my constituents to
fear for their safety," Horsford wrote. Residents in the area "have
expressed concern over the continual presence of multiple out-of-state,
armed militia groups that have remained in the community" since Bundy's
dispute with the Bureau of Land Management came to a boil.

The militia, as reported by Horsford's constituents, "have set up
checkpoints where residents are required to prove they live in the area
before being allowed to pass," the letter said.They have also maintained a presence, sometimes armed, along highways
and roads, as well as community sites like churches and schools, the
letter asserted.Journalists on the scene at the height of the Bundy Ranch standoff estimated as many as 1,000 protesters had gathered earlier this month.

Monday, April 28, 2014

A student in Texas reportedly admitted to bringing multiple guns —
including an AK-47 assault-style rifle — to school on Monday in a plan
to commit violence if his demands were not met. According to the San Antonio Express-News,
the parents of the 17-year-old male student reported him as a runaway
to the police when they woke up and determined that he was not at home.
KSAT reported that the parents also found that three guns were missing in the home. After the student was located at Madison High School, two of the
loaded guns and a knife were found by searching his backpack. The teen
admitted that an AK-47 had also been hidden in a trashcan in a school
restroom. “The
student had said that he planned making some demands over the [public
address system] announcements later today at Madison High School,” North
East Independent School District spokesperson Aubrey Chancellor told
KSAT. “He didn’t say specifically what those demands were, but he did
says if those demands were not met, he had planned on committing
violence.”It was not immediately clear if the student had planned a mass
shooting, but authorities said they would continue to talk with him. The San Antonio Express-News reported that Texas school
districts “lost millions in attendance revenue” in recent days after
email threats warned of a mass shooting at a school.............

Thursday, April 24, 2014

A former Campus Life Director for Youth for Christ from Huntington, Indiana pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges that he sexually exploited a minor. Nathan Hasty used a fake Facebook page to solicit naked photographs
from children, including ones who belonged to Youth for Christ. An FBI
agent tasked to the case told
WANE that Hasty established multiple Facebook accounts under false
names in order to initiate conversations of a sexual nature with
underage boys.Eventually, he would attempt to coerce the boys into sending him nude photographs. In
the fake accounts, Hasty pretended to be a lascivious sixteen-year-old
girl and struck up conversations with boys, mostly between the ages of
12 and 14. He would eventually ask them to send nude photographs, and
even enticed some of them into webcam sessions in which he watched them
masturbate while claiming he didn’t have a camera. According to the FBI affidavit, Facebook cooperated with the
investigation, providing authorities with the IP address of the
accounts. Because the same IP address was used for all accounts,
authorities believed they all originated from the same computer.Hasty was suspended from Youth for Christ as soon as the organization learned of the FBI investigation.Watch a report on Hasty’s arrest from INC News here.

Pastor Matt Hagee, son of Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee, said
this week that the Ukrainian flyers ordering Jews to register with the
new Russian-allied government — now regarded as a hoax — are a sign that his father’s apocalyptic “blood moon” prophecy is coming true.Right Wing Watch reported
that during this week’s installment of his “Hagee Hotline” show, Matt
Hagee compared the order for Jews to register with the Russian
occupation government to the exclusion of Jews from Spain, which took
place in 1492.On March 31, 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered the expulsion of all Jews from Spain in what is known as the Alhambra Decree.
While the decree was by no means the origin of anti-Semitic sentiment
in Europe, it ushered in one of the darkest periods of vicious religious
persecution in the continent’s history.According to Matthew Hagee, the Alhambra Decree was issued on the night of a so-called “blood moon” eclipse, in which four full lunar eclipses occur in a six month interval. The light of the sun shines through the Earth’s atmosphere at the moon, giving it a red color. “What happened in 1492 happened again last week in the Ukraine,” he said, “on the first of four blood moons.”John Hagee has published a new book called Blood Moons: Something is About to Change, in which he details an end times scenario in which, he said, “God is literally screaming at the world, ‘I’m coming soon.’”John Hagee predicted that a “world-shaking event that will happen between April 2014 and October 2015.”“God sends Planet Earth a signal that something big is about to happen!” said the pastor, who famously declared
that Mormonism is not a Christian sect and therefore has no protections
under the First Amendment. “He’s controlling the Sun and the moon right
now to send our generation a signal, but the question is, are we
getting it?”.........

Televangelist Pat Robertson warned on Monday that Jesus had said that
an asteroid would destroy the Earth — and it could happen as soon as
next week. On Tuesday, three former NASA astronauts are expected to present their findings that the Earth had experienced far more impacts from large asteroids than previously thought. For Robertson, the news was just the latest reason to hype his book, The End of the Age, which asserts that the End Times predicted in Revelation will be brought on by a meteor.“I
wrote a book!” Robertson advised viewers. “It deals with an asteroid
hitting the Earth. I don’t see anything else that fulfills the prophetic
words of Jesus Christ other than an asteroid strike.”“There isn’t anything that will cause the seas to roil, that will,
you know, cause the skies to darken, the moon and the sun not to give
their light, the nations terrified on Earth of what’s happening. There
isn’t anything that’s going to do that.”He continued: “We’re big enough to draw some of them in. And as
somebody said, it’s ‘blind luck.’ Well, it’s the mercy of the Lord. But
if that mercy ever got lifted, whew.”Robertson advised his viewers to “read what Jesus said” about “nobody living on the face of the Earth.”“That’s what Jesus himself said!” he advised. “So, hey, just get ready. Get right. And stay right with the Lord.”“It could be next week, it could be 1,000 years from now. But
nevertheless, we want to be ready whenever the Lord says, ‘I’m wrapping
it up, and it’s time to come home.’'...............

Friday, April 18, 2014

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.

Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue
that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly
transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites
wield most power.Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from
1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on
the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless
of or even against the will of the majority of voters."The central point that emerges from our research is that economic
elites and organized groups representing business interests have
substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write,
"while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no
independent influence."As one illustration, Gilens and Page compare the political
preferences of Americans at the 50th income percentile to preferences of
Americans at the 90th percentile as well as major lobbying or business
groups. They find that the government—whether Republican or
Democratic—more often follows the preferences of the latter group rather
than the first.The researches note that this is not a new development caused by,
say, recent Supreme Court decisions allowing more money in politics,
such as Citizens United or this month's ruling on McCutcheon v. FEC.
As the data stretching back to the 1980s suggests, this has been a long
term trend, and is therefore harder for most people to perceive, let
alone reverse."Ordinary citizens," they write, "might often be observed to 'win'
(that is, to get their preferred policy outcomes) even if they had no
independent effect whatsoever on policy making, if elites (with whom
they often agree) actually prevail."

Thursday, April 17, 2014

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2015 budget
request would boost U.S. tax revenues by nearly $1.4 trillion over 10
years if fully enacted, slashing deficits by $1.05 trillion while
funding new spending, the Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday.There is virtually no chance that Congress will advance Obama’s plan
in its entirety. But the CBO’s latest analysis will feed campaign
messaging by both Democrats and Republicans ahead of congressional
elections in November.The analysis compares Obama’s request to a new “baseline” estimate
that CBO released last week that assumes no changes to current tax and
spending laws.But
Obama’s budget plan is loaded with new policy changes, including an
assumption that sweeping immigration reforms are enacted, producing a
net 10-year deficit reduction of $158 billion.It proposes to boost revenues by limiting tax breaks for wealthy
Americans and businesses, imposing a new tax on millionaires, raising
tobacco taxes, and restoring estate and gift taxes to their previously
higher, 2009 levels.At the same time, it would boost spending by expanding cash tax
credits for low-income Americans, canceling the “sequester” automatic
spending cuts to military and domestic programs, and increasing funds
for job training programs, among other changes.Republicans, who last week in the House of Representatives passed an
austere, 10-year balanced budget plan with deep domestic spending cuts
and no tax increases, will focus their criticism on tax hikes in Obama’s
plan. Democrats, who are basing their re-election campaigns on efforts
to reduce the gap between rich and poor, are expected to highlight
Obama’s proposals to aid the middle class and the poor.The CBO analysis shows that Obama’s budget plan would increase
deficits slightly relative to current law in fiscal 2014 and 2015, with
deficits just above $500 billion in both years.Deficits in later years of the 10-year budget window would begin to
rise again in both Obama’s plan and the current-law CBO estimate as more
of the Baby Boom generation retires and draws federal benefits. But
deficits under Obama’s plan in those years would be lower than the CBO
baseline as the new revenue measures gain steam.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The mayor of a small Missouri town has mostly nice things to say
about the white supremacist accused of killing three people at Jewish
facilities last weekend.

Marionville, Mo. Mayor Dan Clevenger spoke warmly this week of
Frazier Glenn Miller, who allegedly went on a killing rampage on Sunday
in Overland Park, Kan."He was always nice and friendly and respectful of elder people, you
know, he respected his elders greatly. As long as they were the same
color as him," Clevenger said while laughing, according to television
station KSPR. "Very fair and honest and never had a bit of problems out of him."Clevenger said he sympathized with some of Miller's views, but didn't like to broadcast that."Kind of agreed with him on some things but, I don't like to express
that too much," Clevenger, the owner of a local repair shop, said.He told CNN this week that he didn't buy some of Miller's claims."He had a lot of hate built up inside of him," Clevenger said. "And
every time he'd come down here, he'd go on about different races --
mainly Jews. He claims they're all bad, but I don't believe that."However, KSPR unearthed a letter to the editor that the mayor sent
nearly a decade ago to a newspaper in Aurora, Mo. in which he expressed
admiration for Miller's mission."I am a friend of Frazier Miller helping to spread his warnings,"
Clevenger wrote, according to KSPR. "The Jew-run medical industry has
succeeded in destroying the United State's workforce."Clevenger also reportedly wrote that the "Jew-run government backed
banking industry turned the U.S into the world's largest debtor nation."He seemed to stand by those positions in his interview with KSPR, blaming Jews for the country's economic woes."There some things that are going on in this country that are
destroying us. We've got a false economy and it's, some of those
corporations are run by Jews because the names are there," he said. "The
fact that the Federal Reserve prints up phony money and freely hands it
out, I think that's completely wrong. The people that run the Federal
Reserve, they're Jewish."But Clevenger denounced Miller's alleged violence, calling the deadly shooting "terrible.""He didn't have any right to do that and I think he should pay with his life," Clevenger said.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

What happens in Asia doesn't stay in Asia, a
new study warns. Pollution from booming economies in the Far East is
causing stronger storms and changing weather patterns over the Pacific
Ocean, which in turn is changing weather in North America, scientists
report.

The scientists say pollution from Asia is likely leading to stronger cyclones
in the midlatitudes of the Pacific, more precipitation, and a faster
movement of heat from the tropics toward the North Pole. As a result of
these changes, "it's almost certain that weather in the U.S. is
changing," says Zhang.

Smaller Drops, Bigger Storms

Zhang
and his colleagues used computer modeling to study the effects on the
weather of aerosols, which are fine particles suspended in the air. The
main natural aerosols over the Pacific are sea salt tossed up by waves
and dust blown off the land.

But
those natural particles are now increasingly outnumbered by human-made
ones. According to Zhang, the most significant aerosols the team
considered are sulfates, which are emitted primarily by coal-fired power plants. Other aerosol pollutants are released by vehicle emissions and industrial activities.

In
the atmosphere, such aerosols scatter and absorb sunlight, and thus
have both cooling and warming effects on climate. But they also affect
the formation of clouds and precipitation—and the magnitude of that
indirect effect on clouds is one of the biggest uncertainties hampering
scientists' ability to forecast climate change.

Clouds
form when water vapor condenses around aerosol particles to form liquid
droplets. Because pollution increases the number of particles, it leads
to more water droplets—but smaller ones. Those smaller droplets in turn
rise to greater heights in the atmosphere—and even form ice—before they
precipitate back out.

In
the recent study the scientists took a first stab at considering those
global implications. Standard global climate models simulate the
atmosphere at grid points that are too widely spaced to resolve the
fine-scale processes involved in cloud formation—which is one reason
clouds remain such a knotty problem for climate scientists. But the
researchers found a way to embed a "cloud resolving model" into a
conventional climate model.

They
then used that "multiscale" model to compare the preindustrial
atmosphere of 1850, when levels of aerosol pollution over the Pacific
were low, with the present atmosphere.

The
simulations confirmed that human-made aerosols are now spreading across
the Pacific and having large effects on the storms that sweep east
during winter. The storms are more vigorous than they would be without
pollution, with more ice and a broader "anvil" shape to the cloud tops.
And those more vigorous storms are having a significant effect on the
global atmosphere: They're increasing the flow of heat from the
equatorial region toward the Arctic, says Zhang.

What about North America? The Pacific storm track has a big effect on American weather, and large-scale natural changes like El Niño and La Niña are known to disrupt its usual pattern, leading to floods and droughts.

"What
we have shown is that aerosols from Asia can get transported over the
Pacific and change weather in North America," Zhang says—but nailing
down the nature of the change will require more research.

"We've
been getting some weird weather, such as a very cold winter [in the
eastern U.S.], so the next question is, does that have something to do
with Asian pollution?"

In its latest projections for Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office has lowered the law's costs over the next 10 years by more than $100 billion.Most of the change can be linked to lower spending on tax subsidies
for coverage purchased on HealthCare.gov and its state counterparts,
which can in turn be linked to lower-than-expected premiums.

CBO projected that the federal government would spend $164 billion
less than previously expected on Obamacare subsidies by 2024. It appears
that a number of factors contributed to that change. Premiums,
especially in the near term, are expected to be lower than previously
projected: The office estimated premiums would rise on average by about
$100 in 2015. They are still expected to rise over the next decade, but
at a lower rate than previously thought.It's a combination of rising medical costs, a healthier enrollment
population in 2015 and the make-up of the Obamacare plans, which have
narrower provider networks and lower provider payments than their
counterparts in the large-group market, that contribute to the CBO's
calculations on premiums. Other changes, such as a smaller under-65
population, also factored into the revisions.The savings on subsidies are somewhat offset by other revisions by
CBO, including fewer individual mandate penalty payments and an
estimated increase in the number of active workers with employer-based
coverage (about 1 million per year), which decreases expected federal
revenues.The net effect is that the law is projected to cost $104 billion less
over 10 years than CBO's most recent estimate in February 2014.

Monday, April 07, 2014

None of the three major cable news networks have a perfect record on
portraying climate science, but Fox News was the most innacurate of all
in 2013, according to a new report.The report,
released Monday by the Union of Concerned Scientists, looked at
segments on the cable networks’ prominent evening and weekend programs
that mentioned “global warming” or “climate change” in 2013. Researchers
found that segments on MSNBC were the most accurate, with just 8
percent of the segments containing misleading statements about the
science behind climate change. CNN was next in terms of accuracy, with
30 percent of segments containing misleading statements, and Fox was
last, with 72 percent of segments containing misinformation or
misrepresentations of climate science.

CREDIT: Union of Concerned Scientists

The nature of the misleading statements differed from station to
station, with CNN’s inaccuracy growing from debate guests who doubted
certain aspects of climate science, such as the relationship between
climate change and extreme weather. Fox hosts and guests, on the other
hand, would more often accuse climate scientists of hiding or
misrepresenting data, and were also more likely to state outright that
climate change was not occurring. Accurate coverage of climate science
on Fox came primarily from Special Report with Bret Baier and The
O’Reilly Factor, and despite being the least-accurate of the three
networks according to the report, Fox’s 28 percent accuracy rating is an
increase from a 2012 UCS report, which found that Fox was accurate just 7 percent of the time.MSNBC contained misleading coverage from the opposite side of the
spectrum, with hosts sometimes overstating how fast sea levels are
rising or making links between things that aren’t yet scientifically
known, such as climate change’s effects on tornadoes. Aaron Huertas, science communications officer at UCS, told
ThinkProgress that the differences in accuracy among the networks were
largely a result of sourcing. When CNN did have accurate coverage, they
relied on federal and academic scientists, with their misleading
coverage coming mostly from debates that featured ideological guests.“For CNN, I was surprised to see so many segments in which people
were still arguing about whether or not climate science is valid,”
Huertas said in an email. “The basic science on climate change is as
clear as the science linking smoking to lung disease; there’s no reason
to have debates about whether or not that science is valid, even if
there are still some people who reject the science for ideological
reasons.”The report focused on accuracy of coverage, but it also uncovered
another discrepancy among the cable networks: MSNBC covered climate
change more often than CNN or Fox did. The report noted 132 MSNBC
evening and weekend segments that mentioned climate science in 2013,
while Fox had 50 segments mentioning climate science and CNN had 43.
Huertas said that Chris Hayes’s two shows on MSNBC had nearly as many
segments that discussed climate science as all the CNN shows looked at
by the report. But Huertas said ultimately he was more interested in
whether the networks got climate science right when they did mention it
than how much they covered it in total. When a network covers climate
science but does so inaccurately, it can be just as unhelpful as not
covering it at all — a point illustrated by the news of last week’s IPCC
report, which Fox covered for more than 5 minutes (compared to CNN’s one minute, eight seconds) but which it called a waste of time.“We can disagree — heartily — on how to respond to the facts, but
reality is reality,” Huertas said. “CNN could host more debates about
policy and drop debates on established science. Fox News could do more
to differentiate between political opposition to climate policy and
rejection of climate science. MSNBC has proven it can cover nuanced
science accurately, so it could do more to curtail the occasional
segments in which hosts or guests overstate the effects of climate
change.”CNN, MSNBC and Fox News did not respond to ThinkProgress’ request for comment in time for publication.

In a videotaped 2009 speech before student Republicans at Western
Kentucky University, Rand Paul — who was just beginning his run for the
Senate seat he eventually won — explained that former Vice President
Dick Cheney, who counseled against war in Iraq in 1995, pushed for war
following 9/11 to benefit his former employers at military contractor
Halliburton.In the video, discovered by David Corn at Mother Jones,
Paul can be seen standing at a lectern describing Cheney’s opinion in
1995, when he said that invading Iraq would be, “a disaster, it would be
vastly expensive, it’d be civil war, we would have no exit strategy.”Paul said:

There’s
a great YouTube of Dick Cheney in 1995 defending [President] Bush
Number One [and the decision not to invade Baghdad in the first Gulf
war], and he goes on for about five minutes. He’s being interviewed, I
think, by the American Enterprise Institute, and and he says it would be
a disaster, it would be vastly expensive, it’d be civil war, we would
have no exit strategy. He goes on and on for five minutes. Dick Cheney
saying it would be a bad idea. And that’s why the first Bush didn’t go
into Baghdad. Dick Cheney then goes to work for Halliburton. Makes
hundreds of millions of dollars, their CEO. Next thing you know, he’s
back in government and it’s a good idea to go into Iraq.

Paul then goes on to describe events following the 9/11 terrorist
attack when, then CIA director, George Tenet is told by George W. Bush
adviser Richard Perle that the attack had given them reason to invade
Iraq, despite the fact that the intelligence had yet to show a
connection:

The day after 9/11, [CIA chief] George Tenet is going in
the [White] House and [Pentagon adviser] Richard Perle is coming out of
the White House. And George Tenet should know more about intelligence
than anybody in the world, and the first thing Richard Perle says to him
on the way out is, ‘We’ve got it, now we can go into Iraq.’ And George
Tenet, who supposedly knows as much intelligence as anybody in the White
House says, ‘Well, don’t we need to know that they have some connection
to 9/11?’ And, he [Perle] says, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ It became an
excuse. 9/11 became an excuse for a war they already wanted in Iraq.

Corn points out that the speech Paul was giving was not a one time event, describing Cheney’s desire for war.In a videotaped 2008 Montana speech, also uncovered by Corn, Paul
directly linked Cheney ‘s Halliburton “millions” to the 2001 Iraq war:

It’s Dick Cheney in 1995 being interviewed on why they
didn’t go into Baghdad the first time under the first [President] George
Bush. And his arguments are exactly mirroring my dad’s arguments for
why we shouldn’t have gone in this time. It would be chaos. There’d be a
civil war. There’d be no exit strategy. And cost a blue bloody fortune
in both lives and treasure. And this is Dick Cheney saying this. But,
you know, a couple hundred million dollars later Dick Cheney earns from
Halliburton, he comes back into government. Now Halliburton’s got a
billion-dollar no-bid contract in Iraq. You know, you hate to be so
cynical that you think some of these corporations are able to influence
policy, but I think sometimes they are. Most of the people on these
[congressional] committees have a million dollars in their bank account
all from different military industrial contractors. We don’t want our
defense to be defined by people who make money off of the weapons.

As Corn points out, there have long been suspicions that Dick Cheney
used the post-9/11 war on Iraq as a way to thank Halliburton for making
him a very wealthy man after stepping down as Secretary of Defense under
former President George H.W. Bush.In 2012, Corn writing for Mother Jones uncovered video
of Mitt Romney telling wealthy donors that 47 percent of people would
vote for Barack Obama because they were “dependent upon government.” The
video was widely believed to be damaging to the Romney campaign.............

Friday, April 04, 2014

A review of former congressman and Founding Father enthusiast Allen
West’s new book has turned up a wide assortment of fake quotes
attributed to Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and
other famous historical figures.According to the Palm Beach Post,
West’s “Guardian of the Republic,” which outlines his political
philosophy and his “warrior code,” includes many quotes that have been
described by historians as erroneous.“Thomas Jefferson said it first: ‘A government big enough to give you
everything you want is also big enough to take it away,’” West wrote.According
to researchers at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in Charlottesville,
Virginia, while that quote has appeared on coffee cups and t-shirts, it
doesn’t appear in any of Jefferson’s writings. So many fake quotations
have been attributed to the drafter of the Declaration of Independence,
that the foundation felt compelled to create a “Spurious Quotations”
list.Three other fake Jefferson quotes in West’s book appear on the foundation’s list.West is not alone in repeating debunked quotes. President Barack
Obama — as a senator in 2005 — and John McCain — as a 2008 presidential
candidate — are among those who have previously quoted George Washington
as saying that “the willingness with which our young people are likely
to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly
proportional to how they perceive veterans of earlier wars were treated
and appreciated by our nation.”West includes that quote in his book. But the words aren’t
Washington’s, according to Mary V. Thompson, a research historian with
the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington.A quote attributed to Patrick Henry in West’s book didn’t come from
the Virginian’s writings or speeches, says Henry biographer Thomas Kidd,
a professor of history at Baylor University.West quotes Henry as saying: “The Constitution is not an instrument
for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the
people to restrain the government.”Kidd described the quote as a new one that has gained popularity via the Internet.“The thing that’s strange about that quote to me is it actually
sounds like something that Henry might have said. I find it puzzling
that it keeps getting used. You can find similar things that Henry has
said that are actual quotes,” Kidd said.Kidd added, “If we admire these people, then I think we should represent what they actually said.”Asked to provide sources for the Jefferson quotes and some others in
the book, West co-author Michele Hickford has declined comment and a
spokeswoman for Crown Publishing has not responded.West, who is currently touring to promote the book, could not be reached.

The intense conservative ire for Obamacare may seem like an anomaly
in American history. But it's eerily reminiscent of two other large --
and now widely popular -- expansions of the safety net: Social Security
and Medicare.

The two programs are now a staple of American political culture. But a
backward glance at the political environment during their inception
reveals equally fierce, ugly antipathy from conservatives -- including
screaming warnings that they'd be ruinous to freedom.During the 1935 debate over Social Security, Republicans likened it to slavery and dictatorship."Never in the history of the world has any measure been brought here
so insidiously designed as to prevent business recovery, to enslave
workers and to prevent any possibility of the employers providing work
for the people," said Rep. John Taber (R-NY)."The lash of the dictator will be felt," said Rep. Daniel Reed
(R-NY), "and 25 million free American citizens will for the first time
submit themselves to a fingerprint test."Rep. James W. Wadsworth (R-NY) cautioned that passage of Social
Security would open the door to a government power "so vast, so powerful
as to threaten the integrity of our institutions and to pull the
pillars of the temple down upon the heads of our descendants."

Three decades later, when Medicare was first conceived in the early 1960s, the public was deeply divided,
and similar warnings were voiced. Embodying the conservative movement's
sentiments at the time was Ronald Reagan, who taped a recording on
behalf of the American Medical Association warning that the program
would, quite simply, lead to the destruction of freedom."If Medicare passes into law, the consequences will be dire beyond
imagining," Reagan said. If opponents failed to scuttle it, he warned,
"One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling
our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in
America when men were free."Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, in 1964, likened
Medicare to free vacations and beer. "Having given our pensioners their
medical care in kind," he said,
"why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not
vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and
of beer for those who drink?"

Half a century later, Republicans loudly and proudly proclaim their
support for both programs, and are loathe to admit their party ever
opposed them.But history repeats itself. In 2010, Democrats passed the Affordable
Care Act -- the largest expansion of the safety net since Medicare --
following a similarly intense debate. Democrats heralded it as a step
toward a more humane society, and Republican opponents warned it would
pose a grave threat to economic freedom. Unlikely Social Security and
Medicare, Obamacare failed to win over even a fraction of Republicans,
who were reduced a small, deeply ideological rump in both chambers of
Congress after two landslide elections for Democrats.This week, Obamacare took a leap toward sustainability as it crossed the milestone of 7 million insurance sign-ups. Even as conservative wonks concede that the program is probably here to stay, the residue from the hyper-partisan and polarizing debate lingers, and Republicans remain
committed to dismantling it. But if past is prologue, over time as the
coverage expansion and benefits fully take effect, the fatalistic
warnings will fizzle and Republicans will come to terms with the new
health care program."In politics, losses always worry people more than abstract future
gains entice them. Now, every vote to repeal or eviscerate Obamacare
risks offending millions – and the potential to arouse pushback will
only grow," argued
Theda Skocpol, a Harvard professor, sociologist and liberal author.
"This story isn’t like Social Security, where most potential
beneficiaries saw few gains for two decades. Affordable Care is already a
massive presence in U.S. health care. It cannot be rolled back and
those who keep championing that Lost Cause will do so at rising
political peril."

Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Obamacare's deadline day brought some shocking news: Despite all its
problems, the law was on track to hit 7 million sign-ups, the original
projection by the Congressional Budget Office prior to HealthCare.gov's
disastrous launch last October.It's only a symbolic victory for the White House -- Obamacare's
long-term success wasn't contingent on 7 million sign-ups -- but after
the troubled rollout that saw the law and the president's approval
ratings sink to all-time lows, it's surely one that they'll take. A new
analysis also credited the law with covering 9.5 million previously
uninsured, a significant decrease in the law's first year. All in all, a
good day for a law that hasn't had many.But for Republicans, it signaled the end of some of their favorite Obamacare memes.

More People Have Lost Coverage Than Gained ItRAND Corp, a non-profit think tank, dealt the death blow Monday in a new analysis
reported by the Los Angeles Times. The study concluded that less than 1
million people were now uninsured because their previous coverage had
been canceled and they hadn't signed up for a new health plan. The Times
estimated that about 9.5 million previously uninsured people had gotten
covered.Which makes these previous proclamations from Republican leaders obsolete.“The Administration is recognizing the grim reality that more
Americans have lost health insurance than gained it under ObamaCare,"
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said in a Dec. 19 statement.Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group assaulting Democrats
nationwide over the law, was still trotting out the line this month.
"Millions of people have lost their health insurance, millions of people
can’t see their own doctors, and millions are paying more and getting
less," said one television ad that PolitiFact rated "False."

The White House Is Cooking The Books On Obamacare EnrollmentThe denial -- Obamacare 'trutherism', if you will -- had started
last week when the White House said that enrollment had hit the 6
million mark. Conservatives called the new numbers into question, with
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) going so far as accusing the administration of "cooking the books." Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) backed that reading in an appearance on Fox News.But these are mostly semantic arguments. It's true that some people
won't pay their first premium for their new coverage and the final
enrollment number could fall back below 7 million. But Republicans are
clearly struggling to process the fact that so many people signed up at
all. How many did exactly -- whether it's 6.8 million or 7.2 million or
whatever the final number -- is immaterial to the law's ultimate
success. The allegations of impropriety are simply intended to undercut
the unexpectedly good news for the law: A lot of people decided they
wanted to have health insurance.

Low Enrollment Numbers Prove Americans Don't Want Obamacare -- So We Should Repeal It.Even though the demand for Obamacare coverage proved to be there in
the end, Republicans were still doubling down this week on repeal.“The president’s health care law continues to wreak havoc on American
families, small businesses and our economy," House Speaker John Boehner
(R-OH) said in a Monday statement.
“House Republicans will continue to work to repeal this law and protect
families and small businesses from its harmful consequences."

Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted #FullRepeal on Monday afternoon. House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's budget, released
Tuesday, repeals most of Obamacare. These statements came alongside a
new poll that found support for the law had broken even for the first
time.The politics of this new reality are still unclear. It remains
possible that the Republican base's hatred of Obamacare, paired with the
2014 fundamentals, could be enough to propel them to victory in November. But at some point, the GOP will have to reconcile its long-held worldview with the fact that millions of people are benefitting from the law.For today, though, they seem content to rage against the dying of their memes.